Does the New York Times have a racism problem? According to a new lawsuit filed Thursday, it just might.
The New York Times Company has been slapped with a class-action suit by a pair of black employees who claim that that they were discriminated against, and then retaliated against when they complained about the discrimination.
In their suit, filed in federal court in New York on Thursday, Ernestine Grant and Marjorie Walker claim that the paper has engaged in “deplorable discrimination.”
“Not only only does the Times have an ideal customer (young, white, wealthy), but also an ideal staffer (young, white, unencumbered with a family) to draw that purported ideal customer,” the suit reads.
Grant and Walker, who work in the Times’ advertising division, claim that the problems began with the 2012 appointment of CEO Mark Thompson, also named as a defendant. According to the suit, since Thompson’s arrival “the workplace at the Times has become an environment rife with discrimination based on age, race and gender.”
The suit in particular cites Thompson’s appointment of chief revenue officer Meredith Levien, who, according to the complaint, “made it very clear that she was looking for a very particular workforce, one that was filled with ‘fresh faces,’ i.e., younger employees without families, and who were white.”
“True to form, under Mr. Thompson and Ms. Levien, age, gender and race discrimination became a modus operandi at the Times, with two different age- and gender-related lawsuits filed by advertising executives over the last year.”
For example, the suit claims, Levien used a presentation to the advertising department as an “opportunity to openly state her discriminatory and strategically wrong-headed goals, and flashed photos of generally older Times employees of color, critiquing them based on their age, marital status and other protected characteristics.”
The suit claims that Levien’s example had a ripple effect. According to Grant and Walker, in 2015 Brendan Monoghan, at the time the senior vice president of advertising and publisher of T: The New York Times Style Magazine, held networking events at his Hamptons home that excluded older employees, and limited all but one of his hires to white men under 30, whom he called his “handsome men.”
In a statement to TheWrap, Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said that the suit “completely distorts the realities of the work environment” at the paper.
“This lawsuit contains a series of recycled, scurrilous and unjustified attacks on both Mark Thompson and Meredith Levien. It also completely distorts the realities of the work environment at The New York Times,” Murphy said. “We strongly disagree with any claim that The Times, Mr. Thompson or Ms. Levien have discriminated against any individual or group of employees. The suit is entirely without merit and we intend to fight it vigorously in court.”
Grant and Walker claim that they brought up complaints of discrimination at the company’s Advertising Diversity Meetings, but that the meetings were “a sham … giving mere lip service to the goal of diversity.” Among their grievances, Grant claims that she was repeatedly passed over for an advertising director position despite “excellent performance over many years,” while Walker says she was “given the lowest revenue accounts during her time in the Fashion & Jewelry Department, with higher revenue accounts assigned to her younger, white colleagues.”
Alleging discrimination, retaliation and other counts, the suit seeks unspecified damages.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.